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If you’ve been thinking about launching a part-time business in retirement, you know it can be stressful and financially draining. Success is hardly guaranteed. But as I like to tell my clients, one way to lower your risks is to think small, not big.

Find Your Business Niche

By that I mean instead of opening a broadly based business, think about a niche that targets a specialized, under-served segment of a market. By providing your customers an affordable and flexible alternative to full-service packages offered by your competitors, you can increase your odds of success and work on your own schedule.

Let me share an example to illustrate what I mean. A friend of mine recently hired a wedding photographer for her daughter, buying a package costing thousands of dollars that included engagement photos, day-of shots, leather photo albums and the like. But not everyone can afford a soup-to-nuts (or in this case, engagement to reception) offering.

That’s why photographers who market their services on an hourly basis, without up-selling their clients on extras, will likely find a ready market for their services. Will they earn less than full-service photographers? Yes. But at an hourly rate of $100 to $200, niche photographers can still earn a healthy part-time income.

3 Part-Time Retirement Businesses

You can apply this same “think small” strategy to many other types of part-time businesses in retirement, like:

Personal chef: If you’re a good cook, instead of facing heavy competition running a catering business, hire yourself out as a personal chef. By preparing gourmet-style meals for clients in the comfort of their own homes during the day, you’ll keep expenses down and, in most cases, avoid working evenings and weekends.

According to the American Personal and Private Chef Association, certified chefs can earn between $200 to $500 a day. You can get a certificate after taking classes at a community college, culinary school or through the association’s home study, virtual seminar or live seminar programs (cost: $505 to $950). To learn more about becoming a personal chef, visit the association's website, personalchef.com.

Home-based virtual assistant: You’d be an independent contractor handling administrative, clerical and technical tasks for a few small businesses that can’t afford full-time, on-site administrators. Virtual assistants charge from $15 to $75 (or more) per hour, depending upon their experience, specialty and the complexity of the individual project. To learn more, go to the website of the International Virtual Assistants Association, ivaa.org.